Robo-advice finds market in digital-savvy older investors
Hey robo-advisers … You’re looking the wrong way! Millennials have no spare money and don’t care about investing just yet — but older Australian investors are more than ready to play. One survey after another in the US shows older investors are actually super keen to examine low-cost digital-based financial services. And closer to home, it’s worth pointing out that a recent survey from the SMSF Association revealed a higher portion of Australia’s one million SMSF operators were willing to try robo-advice than the general public. No doubt this emerging reality has not been lost on the kingpins of Australian finance — the banks. Earlier this week, NAB funds management […]
Global startup crowdfunding platform OurCrowd expands to India, Australia
OurCrowd, an equity crowdfunding platform that allows investors to invest in private companies, announced that it was expanding into some of the world’s largest markets this week. The company formally announced the launch of strategic partnerships with Reliance Private Client, a major wealth management firm based in India, and the National Australia Bank. The partnerships allow clients of both firms to access venture capital funding from investors on the OurCrowd platform from around the world. OurCrowd’s goal with the expansions is to diversify the asset classes available to global investors, said CEO Jon Medved in a press release. Medved noted in the release that India alone saw its number of […]
Open banking start-up Basiq snares funding from Westpac and NAB
The venture capital funds of Westpac Banking Corp and National Australia Bank have co-invested in Basiq, a start-up that scrapes financial data from bank webpages to help fintechs compete with incumbent banks. Taking advantages of the government’s moves to create an economy where data moves more openly, it plans to morph into a new banking platform that uses “application programming interfaces” (APIs, or software connecting computers) to improve customer experience of financial services. The seed investment by Reinventure Group, Westpac’s venture capital fund, and NAB Ventures comes after Treasurer Scott Morrison said in last month’s budget an “open banking” regime would be created, liberating customer banking data. The Productivity Commission, […]
Bitcoin and Ethereum are hitting record highs
Bitcoin just surged to a new record above $US2,800. It tops the previous high of $US2,799, with the cryptocurrency reaching a peak earlier today of $US2,854.40. A short time ago, Bitcoin was trading at $US2,800.20, a gain of just over 4%. The latest surge shows that speculation in the market shows no signs of abating, after prices for Bitcoin dipped back below $US2,000 at the end of May. Prices for the world’s second largest cryptocurrency ethereum have also ripped higher, a short time ago up more than 5% to $US256.16. To read more, please click on the link below… Source: Bitcoin and Ethereum are hitting record highs | Business […]
NAB private banking in alliance with Israel’s OurCrowd
Clients of National Australia Bank’s private bank will get special access to venture capital raisings by global technology companies, with NAB and the Israeli equity crowdfunding platform OurCrowd announcing a collaboration deal on Sunday. NAB joins United Overseas Bank of Singapore and Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank of Taiwan in assisting OurCrowd to distribute deals while also getting access to start-ups funded through the platform, one of the world’s largest crowdfunding groups that has raised over $600 million for more than 120 early-stage companies. The deal was announced during an Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce’s women leaders delegation in Israel, that was attended by NAB Private executive general manager Christine Yates. […]
Australian robo-advisors dismiss ING report
The new survey by finance giant ING has been dismissed by Australian robo-advisors as failing the history test and being contradicted by other studies. ING’s survey, which captured headlines, found that 90 percent of global respondents would never use robo-advice. Robo-advisors ranked below friends, family and even the internet as a source of investment advice. “Years ago our parents generation paid for everything in cash and cheque books, people were initially fearful of ATM card technology and online shopping . We now live in virtually a cashless society and online retail is the norm,” Chris Brycki, the CEO of Stockspot, told AltFi. “The idea that robo-advice can’t replace a human […]
NAB Ventures leads $32 million funding for Canadian fintech firm
NAB Ventures led a US$24 million (AU$32 million) series D funding round for cloud fintech firm Wave. The latter, based in Canada, delivers financial management software like payroll, invoicing and accounting. Melissa Widner, NAB Ventures’ general partner, said that the bank is interested in any emerging technologies that offer a connected experience to customers. NAB has more than 450,000 small and medium business customers, making it one of the largest banks in Australia. Wave co-founder and chief executive Kirk Simpson said that nobody understands small business in Australia better than NAB. He added that they are looking forward to explore how to serve businesses better alongside the bank. “We also […]
Bitcoin’s rapid rise gives reason to question all the hype
Bitcoin’s astronomical rally has cryptocurrency bulls feeling vindicated. “Not so fast!,” sceptics say. The digital currency’s more than 100 per cent surge in the past two months looks eerily familiar, argue the bears, pointing to November 2013, when the price quintupled in short order to top $US1,000 for the first time. By Valentine’s Day it was worth around half that, and spent the better part of the next two years languishing below $500. Then it absolutely exploded, jumping more than $1,400 in two months. At its height last week, one bitcoin could buy about two ounces of gold. Its champions touted the arrival into the mainstream of blockchain, the coin’s […]
